The Least 'National' World Cup Winning Team

Out of every team to win the world cup this English team has the most foreign born players.
A fair few teams have had XI home born players in their international tournament winning teams (WC, Champs Trophy, T20 and the mini world cup):
West Indies 75, West Indies 79, India 83 (though I may be mixing together some subcontinental places for all Asian teams), Australia 87, Pakistan 91, Sri Lanka, 96, India 07, Pakistan 09, Australia 09

What are everyone's thoughts on this? I've heard a fair few arguments either way, namely that it doesn't matter where you are born but where you live now, or who you represented first at a youth national level, or how long they have lived in their host country.

For me personally it hollows England's victory a bit to have a fair few players in the team that represented South Africa and Ireland at different levels. I'm not trying to tear into England here but get a bit of debate going over where this kind of team make-up may be heading in the future. Besides everyone knows that it was the English bowlers who did most of the match winning in the final.

It's not like England bought these players off the street, or stole them away from the safe clutches of South African sporting academies. Pietersen, Lumb and Morgan were developed, trained and raised by the English sporting system. Kieswetter is a bit different as he played for Yarpie U-19s, but I have no problem with Pietersen, Lumb, Morgan, Strauss or Prior.

Just sour grapes from other teams that keep bringing this up all the time.

>>>>>>WHHOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHH>>>>>>Fascist Dictator of the Heath Davis Appreciation SocietySupporting Petone's Finest since the very start - Iain O'Brien
Adam Wheater - Another batsman off the Essex production line
Also Supporting the All Time #1 Batsman of All Time Ever - Jacques Kallis and the much maligned Peter Siddle.

Kidding. I've no issues with players who didn't get a chance to make it big in their home country. And decided to emigrate, did the hard yards in the county system, satisfied the criteria to become a full national (playing for 3 years?), and then made his appearance. This applies to KP, etc etc.

But what I have issues is when a player like Morgan who for 20 years of his life played cricket in Ireland suddenly starts playing for England, utilising the loophole that an Associate player need not have the 3 years cooling period. this is quite ridiculous because then Ireland is reduced to just being a talent pool for England, for whom they don't have to spend on (Ireland receives funding from the ICC being Associate nation), and this practise virtually eliminates any chance of Ireland ever becoming a full member, as it's best talent is always employed by England.

It's not like England bought these players off the street, or stole them away from the safe clutches of South African sporting academies. Pietersen, Lumb and Morgan were developed, trained and raised by the English sporting system. Kieswetter is a bit different as he played for Yarpie U-19s, but I have no problem with Pietersen, Lumb, Morgan, Strauss or Prior.

Just sour grapes from other teams that keep bringing this up all the time.

Not trying to imply that England are to blame for this but New Zealand have a lot of foreigners as well, this world cup just brought up how many players are from overseas in a pretty legitimate sense.

NZ have Watling, Elliott and a Wagner who won't be too far from playing. We've always had a few Aussie born players as well, like Styris and Sinclair. I'm just wondering where the ICC should draw the line in the sand between what country you play for.

Kieswetter played for South Africa's Western Province from 13-18 and represented them in the 06 U/19 WC.
Lumb played for junior teams in Transvaal and has since then played county cricket since 2000.
Pietersen played first class cricket in Natal for two seasons before first playing in England where he played in both countries for a while I think. He did play at least 4 years of cricket for English domestic teams before getting his cap.
Morgan played for Irish U-15,17 and 19s and soon got an Irish cap not long after. Playing English domestic cricket since 06 for Middlesex but having been a product of Irish cricket for a few years before this and a couple years after.

I reckon Pietersen and Lumb are pretty much non-issues but that Kieswetter and Morgan are open for far more scrutiny. The players themselves an the English team selection should come under no fire as they should both be looking to make the best team, I'm more concerned that with Morgan a highly promising player was taken from Ireland due to the ICC's relaxed rules on associates. Kieswetter is probably just a bit fresh in England for mine but possibly not an issue either.

It's just strange to see such a large amount of non-national born players. Then theres blokes like Nash who leave Australian cricket because they don't reckon they can get a cap.

Did the Hollioake brothers ever play FC cricket in Australia? (Don't recall them doing so, but could well be wrong..)

Was thinking of them too and I don't think they Adam played FC cricket but, without checking, I think he played rep cricket, much like Geraint Jones. Surely Ben, considering he played his first game for England at 19 was too young to have played anything other than grade cricket here?

Was thinking of them too and I don't think they Adam played FC cricket but, without checking, I think he played rep cricket, much like Geraint Jones. Surely Ben, considering he played his first game for England at 19 was too young to have played anything other than grade cricket here?

Just wiki'd, says they moved to England when Adam was 12/13 so I wouldn't exactly say they started their careers here in Aust.

As for the other players Heath mentioned, Strauss moved to England aged 6 and Prior aged 11 so aren't a problem.

But they are a problem to some. I have no problem with these guys whatsoever.

And then, this isn't a new phenomenon - Kepler Wessels, Tony Greig, Basil de Oliveira, Robin Smith, Allan Lamb, Graeme Hick, Andrew Caddick, Alan Mullally, Martin McCague, Craig White. If you've lived in a country long enough to earn a passport for that country, I don't see how you can say it's wrong for them to play for that adoptive country.

Even Nasser Hussain was born in Madras FFS. Anyone arguing that he isn't a Pom can **** right off.